June 2012

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jeff001

Joseph's Riverport BBQ in Jefferson reopens tomorrow

Here's the news we've been waiting for. Joseph's Riverport Bar-B-Que is reopening tomorrow, Thursday June 28, after a fire that totaled the restaurant last January. Owner/pitmaster Stephen Joseph sends these photos of his new joint, which was rebuilt from the ground up on the original location at 201 N Polk Street in downtown Jefferson. He installed a new Bewley pit, which he has been breaking in for the past couple of months. My wife Michele and I will be heading over for a return visit this Saturday. We had some great BBQ during our last trip there, ranking Joseph's Riverport…
Joints - 06/27/2012
clydeTWO001

Posse members react to Clyde Biggins' BBQ

There is no shortage of opinions on the Texas BBQ Posse. Often we differ among ourselves. That wasn't the case when we ate lunch last week at Clyde Biggins' house. We all agreed that the former Dallas BBQ King, trying to make a comeback after nearly 17 years in prison, can still cook. Here are comments from Posse members there: Michael Ainsworth: Took me back to a different time, when it was just a bunch of friends getting together for food and fun. It's not re-creatable. It just is. Chris Wilkins: What a great setting for a Friday afternoon BBQ…
People - 06/26/2012
clydeBBQ001

Clyde is back, cooking some of the best BBQ in Dallas, but you can't buy it

Sometimes, the only place to start is at the beginning. In early January 2010, a large manilla envelope came to me in the mail from the federal prison in Fort Worth. A reader commented on a story I had written for The Dallas Morning News about the Posse's very first barbecue tour, to the Central Texas BBQ heartland. "It's all good," the reader wrote. "'But' have you really tasted the best barbecue in Texas?" The reader said his name was Clyde Biggins and that he once owned "Clyde's Old Fashion Hickory Smoked Barbecue" on Westmoreland Road in Dallas. "'Note,'" Biggins…
People - 06/25/2012
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The Barbecue Chronicles: Houston, we have a barbecue problem

The eight stops on the Texas BBQ Posse's Gulf Coast BBQ Tour.  (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse) Houston is a wasteland for good barbecue, but Galveston and Bryan aren’t. The main mission on the BBQ Posse’s recent 35-hour, 700-mile barbecue tour to the Texas Gulf Coast and back was to find good smoked meat in Houston. We didn’t. But an hour south, on Galveston Island, we met Leon O’Neal and learned again about the true power of barbecue. O’Neal, who runs Leon’s World Finest In & Out Bar-B-Que House at Broadway and 55th, told us about the cleanup after Hurricane…
Joints - 06/24/2012
ozzy

About the iguana who thought he was a cat and the python who only eats rats

On a barbecue tour, there is no such thing as down time. Even the long drives bring surprises. Last year, returning to Dallas from East Texas, we decided that someone should call out Texas Monthly for including joints that use gas-fired pits in its Top 50 BBQ rankings. We did just that, eventually engaging TM food editor Pat Sharpe in a constructive discussion about the magazine's selection criteria. Sometimes, we just learn interesting things about our fellow Posse members. On the first leg of our recent 35-hour, 700-mile dash to the Gulf Coast and back, Posse co-founder Chris Wilkins talked…
People - 06/22/2012
PECANmeat

At Pecan Lodge, the Franklin-esque lines for BBQ begin to form at about 10:15 a.m. weekends

Just the other day, a barbecue friend asked me when the lines begin to form for the Pecan Lodge, open Thursday through Sunday for lunch at the Dallas Farmers Market. We have both tried to eat there on a work day since the Lodge was featured on the popular TV show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and been discouraged by long lines and gone elsewhere. This morning, I ran into my Oak Cliff neighbor and Pecan Lodge pitmaster Justin Fourton. He said business has continued to build since the show first aired in late May. On Thursdays and Fridays, he said,…
Joints - 06/20/2012
HTNgroupcropped

Professor Rossman explains the BBQ star system

So we're sitting in our bring-your-own chairs on the narrow sidewalk outside of Fargo's Pit BBQ in Bryan during our recent tour, loudly licking our fingers after eating some fine brisket, ribs, chicken and sausage. "I like everything," I said. "That's rare," Posse member Jim Rossman said. "A five-star place is good at everything. A six-star place is good at everything all the time. Consistency." Rossman, a technology expert at The Dallas Morning News when he isn't visiting pawn shops and eating barbecue, did an authoritative job explaining the star-rating system that the Posse borrows from Daniel Vaughn, the BBQ…
People - 06/18/2012
rossmanribs

A meditation on "creamy, crunchy" BBQ perfection

Recently, one of our readers, probably from Houston, took issue with a reference here to the spectacular ribs at City Market in Luling, seen in the photo above. A Posse member called the best rib he had ever eaten -- just that morning at City Market -- "moist, creamy, crunchy perfection." Our reader wondered how any real barbecue fan could ever call a rib creamy. Of course, he was probably more upset that the same post essentially said the best barbecue in Houston was average when compared to the best in Dallas. Hot barbecue opinions, like hot sports opinions, do…
Cooking - 06/15/2012
frontNEW

Just in time for Father's Day - Here's an updated list of our favorites

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Dallas Morning News food and travel editor Cathy Barber, who I work with as a photo editor at the paper. The dallasnews.com web team was looking for Father's Day content and wanted to rerun our list of favorite joints that ran in the DMN travel section and online last fall. "Do you think this story is still pretty solid, or have you guys changed your mind about some of them?," Cathy asked. Our original list of 12 joints had stirred up a little dust in the BBQ blogosphere. We had intended…
Joints - 06/14/2012
hqdefault

On a barbecue tour, Facebook is your friend

From the accompanying video (* the video was removed a while after we wrote about it), it would appear that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a barbecue fan. Though it's hard to think that Silicon Valley's apparent taste for fish eyes would ever catch on in Texas. Anyway, real barbecue aficionado or not, the Posse wants to thank Zuck for developing the best tool ever for keeping barbecue fans informed and connected, especially when they are on a tour. Witness our recent 700-mile, 35-hour run to the Texas Gulf Coast and back. Posse co-founder and ace photographer Chris Wilkins regularly…
Joints - 06/13/2012
pitssign

Houston BBQ king Jerry Pizzitola's epiphany: His brisket isn't in the same league as Snow's

WARNING: This post contains some gloating, but we hope it stops well short of excessive celebration. A few weeks ago, we wrote about our latest BBQ tour, in search of good smoked meat in Houston. We didn't find any. And we quoted Houston Chronicle photographer Smiley Pool, who shared a Pulitzer Prize while at The Dallas Morning News, saying if you wanted good BBQ in Houston, then you had to get in a car and drive two hours. Several readers chided our taste and challenged our BBQ expertise. One even took at shot at the beer we drank. That's low.…
Joints - 06/12/2012
pizzaSIGN

History more interesting than BBQ at Pizzitola's in Houston

Pizzitola's. Great name for a pizza joint. And that's exactly what what some potential customers mistakenly thought until the place changed its signs several years ago, adding references to barbecue, said manager Lexie Moore. "Everyone thanked us for bringing barbecue to the neighborhood," Moore said. "We had it all the time." We arrived at Pizzitola's Bar-B-Cue on Shepherd Drive in Houston about an hour or so before closing on a Friday night. The joint touts itself as "Houston's Home for Spareribs" and they weren't bad. Neither was the sausage. But the brisket was closer to roast beef, dry and without…
Joints - 06/12/2012
gatlins_SIGN

If you want good BBQ in Houston, get in a car and drive 2 hours

Gatlin's BBQ, located just a few miles from downtown Houston, might have the best motto we've ever run into on our barbecue tours. "Welcome to Gatlin's," the sign said. "Where love is the secret ingredient." And if you want to experience the reality of life in a no-zoning, anything-goes big city, this is the place. Next door is a garden expo that looks like a nursery. Directly across the street are an engine repair business, a house where people live and an automotive sales building. Welcome to Houston. Gatlin's gets rave reviews from some, but the Posse was underwhelmed. "If…
Joints - 06/11/2012
philfish

The Posse takes a beach break in Galveston

For me, a little beach goes a long way. So, during the Posse's 45-minute beach break in Galveston last weekend, midway through a 700-mile, 35-hour barbecue tour, I mainly watched the pelicans dive-bombing for fish. At times, I'd swear those big birds were flying in attack formation. Phil Lamb, an attorney and also the wheelman on the tour in his Chevy Tahoe, fished from a rocky breakwater nearby. He caught one small mullet and 15 pounds of seaweed. Chris Wilkins, a photo editor at The Dallas Morning News, shucked his shoes and walked into the surf for a while. Then…
People - 06/09/2012
fargos001

Unlocking at least one secret to what makes Fargo's Pit BBQ so good

Alan Caldwell, owner and pitmaster at Fargo's Pit BBQ in Bryan, has been very protective of the cooking secrets that help make his joint one of the top two or three in Texas. In the past, he has refused to tell the Posse and BBQ Snob Daniel Vaughn the kind of pit he uses or the kind of wood he burns. "You still refusing to show anyone your pit?" he was asked during our weekend barbecue tour that covered 700 miles and took us to the Texas Gulf Coast. "That's my secret," he said. "Let's talk about something else." After…
Joints - 06/08/2012
htnTOUR01comboSM

The Houston BBQ Tour - A quick look at our itinerary

Here's a quick look at the itinerary for our first Houston BBQ Tour. Last Friday, we headed south down I-45 for a 700-mile journey, searching for the best smoked meats in the Houston area. Over the next two days, we stopped at eight joints stretching from Huntsville to Galveston. This was our tenth organized BBQ tour since November 2009, when an early-morning visit to Snow's BBQ in Lexington started an obsession to search for the best BBQ in Texas. Barbecue would never taste the same again after that day. We'll be writing about the tour in an upcoming travel story…
Joints - 06/07/2012
churchSIGNweb

The thrill is gone from New Zion Missionary Baptist Church BBQ

Everyone in the Posse -- all five of us on this trip -- looked forward to our visit to New Zion Missionary Baptist Church Barbecue in Huntsville, the first stop on a 700-mile, 35-hour tour last weekend to the Texas Gulf coast. Some love the Church's food and wax poetic about the atmosphere. But we were disappointed. Really disappointed. "It was like a bubble burst," said Posse member Phil Lamb. "Boy, the romance is gone from that place." "It was probably good yesterday," Jim Rossman said after tasting the brisket. No smoke, no taste, and the meat looked as if…
Joints - 06/06/2012
leonweb

Avoiding the dreaded barbecue belch

On a barbecue tour, sometimes wisdom sneaks up on you. And so it was in Galveston on Saturday when Leon O'Neal told us his secret to preventing his customers from burping after they ate his smoked meat. Use dry wood, the owner of Leon's World's Finest In and Out B-B-Q said, standing in front of a tall wall of cut oak. "That's where the after belch comes from." In other words, sappy wood is burping bad. Some might put this wisdom in the same category as always buy brisket from the left side of the cow, which we wrote about a…
People - 06/05/2012
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